Guild Wars 2

Situation mesmer/thief team well versed in perma-stealth and hiding is in your keep after a flip. How do you reliably counter this? There isn’t a reliable counter currently.

Permastealth mesmer portal teams need a reliable and viable counter. Currently the best available “counter” is to try and throw enough people at the teams and hope you get lucky and hope they are not good. IE sweeping. Otherwise you might as well hand the keep back over.

I’ve spent alot of time trying to think up and test viable counters. I’ve asked many people about viable counters. I’ve been part of countless discussions on viable counters. I even made a thread on the mesmer forum asking for viable counters. I’ve put in the time trying to find the answer but there is currently no reliable counter in existence to the best of my knowledge. This is untrue of any other tactic in the game that I know of.

Mesmer thread located here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Portals-Objectives-Play-and-Counterplay/first#post2052825

So ya, please give a reliable counter to this tactic so that it has valid play and counter-play. Currently it’s just frustrating, luck based, and requires a heavy investment of people vs an extremely light investment of their people (2) if they are good.

The basic idea behind this tactic, spamming short bow #2 in a smoke field(Black Powder Shot Pistol #5) is really easy to counter, because you can see it easily. And beating a normal group of thieves isn’t a real problem, except they all run D/P.
D/P is just insanely strong with the perma stealth that is possible with it.
Without the Perma Stealth effect of D/P the stealth tactic would be perfectly fine, because it’s not very mobile and easy to spot.
If you see a Smoke field, that gets finished by Blast Finishers, just stand inside it. They will hit you and get revealed.
Same goes for D/P Thieves if you stand in the field they can’t finish the combo with Heartseeker and if they do, they will hit you and get revealed.

There is a very simple solution to this. Change stealth so that stealthed players appear semi-transparent to their enemies, just like they are currently rendered to their allies

This would remove the guess work, but still stealth would have all its benefits (e.g. you cannot be targeted while in stealth).

Tynyss.8237:

Same goes for D/P Thieves if you stand in the field they can’t finish the combo with Heartseeker and if they do, they will hit you and get revealed.

But actually getting hit by something thats invisible is quite hard if isnt actively trying to hit you.
Besides, if he does get revealed, problem with these teams is they are very mobile. They will pop into stealth again after 3 seconds and before they give of a hint where they are at they have gotten quite far away already.

The real issue here is simply that Stealth as a mechanic has no significant counter in the game at all. Everything seemingly has a counter, except Stealth. You cannot break someone out of stealth, or use something to see someone despite Stealth. As a mechanic it is uncounterable at what it does.

And its high time this changed to be honest. Giving both Ranger and Engineer an ability to “guard” an area against Stealthers aswell as the ability to temporarily see through stealth.
For example:

Guard:
Command your pet to aggressively guard an area. Your pet gains stealth and protection for the duration of the skill.

Have the pet also attack targets that are in stealth. If someone comes to close, the pet will attack them. Making it obvious someone in Stealth is near. Something similar for Engineers, have one of the Turrets shoot stealthed targets.

Then giving both these professions an active skill to, temporarily, let them see stealthed enemies.

Engineer:
Break out of stun, gaining fury and immunity to blindness.

Would be a great candidate. Lasts 10seconds, has a 40sec cooldown. Dont know which ability for Ranger would make most sense.

Tynyss.8237:

Same goes for D/P Thieves if you stand in the field they can’t finish the combo with Heartseeker and if they do, they will hit you and get revealed.

The misinformation that is spread is boundless. All aoe stealth skills have a tell tale sign. All of them. Mesmer’s has a wave effect, thief’s has smoke and/or a blast of some sort.

Once again someone is frustrated about a certain tactic so it’s off to the forums to….. The point in fact is we all deal with this. Why can’t they adapt and overcome? Why do they look for the easy way out by changing the “rules”? I’m curious as to how the original programmers feel about their efforts going to kitten in a hand basket.

Deniara Devious.3948:

There is a very simple solution to this. Change stealth so that stealthed players appear semi-transparent to their enemies, just like they are currently rendered to their allies

This would remove the guess work, but still stealth would have all its benefits (e.g. you cannot be targeted while in stealth).

rofl!

Bern.9613:

Once again someone is frustrated about a certain tactic so it’s off to the forums to….. The point in fact is we all deal with this. Why can’t they adapt and overcome? Why do they look for the easy way out by changing the “rules”? I’m curious as to how the original programmers feel about their efforts going to kitten in a hand basket.

Actually there exists next to no counters against a d/p thief who knows what he is doing. Even full bunker d/d ele or guard is generally easier to beat.

If I was Anet, I would implement another “counter” to stealth as a kind of area effect. I would make them leave behind steps in the snow or mud or smth. So that there are areas, where stealth focused characters should not go for a fight, cuz they are getting kinda revealed… Also I would make a tower upgrade that partly reveals stealth in an area arround the tower. Like Deniara Devious suggested. The stealthed character would appear as a s transparent shimmer within the area. They still could do their combos and get benefits like not being targeted (so NPCs won’t attack them at all), but players would see them and could AoE them. As soon as the stealthed character leaves the radius of the upgrade, stealth works as usual.

And no, I do not look for a counter to stealth because I am annoyed by it. I play a mesmer and utilize stealth myself very often.

While playing the game place a white sheet over your head. youll be immune to damage and yet still be able to see what your doing.

complete god mode

TyPin.9860:

If I was Anet, I would implement another “counter” to stealth as a kind of area effect….

…Also I would make a tower upgrade that partly reveals stealth in an area arround the tower. Like Deniara Devious suggested. The stealthed character would appear as a s transparent shimmer within the area….

I will speak on behalf of the thief as my main is one. A thief will not survive an aoe barrage because it has the lowest hp, toughness, survivability of ALL of the warrior classes. They do this because to survive is to eliminate the target before it has a chance to eliminate you. High, fast dps. So unless you’re also suggesting that ANet ups the stats of the thief….

Bern.9613:

TyPin.9860:

If I was Anet, I would implement another “counter” to stealth as a kind of area effect….

…Also I would make a tower upgrade that partly reveals stealth in an area arround the tower. Like Deniara Devious suggested. The stealthed character would appear as a s transparent shimmer within the area….

I will speak on behalf of the thief as my main is one. A thief will not survive an aoe barrage because it has the lowest hp, toughness, survivability of ALL of the warrior classes. They do this because to survive is to eliminate the target before it has a chance to eliminate you. High, fast dps. So unless you’re also suggesting that ANet ups the stats of the thief….

You run some trash spec if you think so :P

Bern.9613:

TyPin.9860:

If I was Anet, I would implement another “counter” to stealth as a kind of area effect….

…Also I would make a tower upgrade that partly reveals stealth in an area arround the tower. Like Deniara Devious suggested. The stealthed character would appear as a s transparent shimmer within the area….

I will speak on behalf of the thief as my main is one. A thief will not survive an aoe barrage because it has the lowest hp, toughness, survivability of ALL of the warrior classes. They do this because to survive is to eliminate the target before it has a chance to eliminate you. High, fast dps. So unless you’re also suggesting that ANet ups the stats of the thief….

I do see your point. I actually don’t think it is that necessary to make a specific stealth counter. What I suggested would be the only stealth counter I can imageine to be viable, if such a counter would be in need. To completely reveal the cloaked character would be too game breaking imho.

To say that cloak has no counter is anyway not the real point, for cloak is smth that can be “circumvented” by a keen senses and good reaction. However, the skill needed to pull of a good stealth build is imho lower than the skill needed to counter that stealth build. This is the actual imbalance. But it’s an imbalance that exists with all glass canon builds out there. The execution seems easier, than the defense against it, especially with many many players running arround in WvW as glass cannons themselfes giving the one, who makes the 1st significant blow, the edge.

anti stealth trap, look the QQing paid off. now you have a counter.

Bern.9613:

TyPin.9860:

If I was Anet, I would implement another “counter” to stealth as a kind of area effect….

…Also I would make a tower upgrade that partly reveals stealth in an area arround the tower. Like Deniara Devious suggested. The stealthed character would appear as a s transparent shimmer within the area….

I will speak on behalf of the thief as my main is one. A thief will not survive an aoe barrage because it has the lowest hp, toughness, survivability of ALL of the warrior classes. They do this because to survive is to eliminate the target before it has a chance to eliminate you. High, fast dps. So unless you’re also suggesting that ANet ups the stats of the thief….

You have medium armor and you can use same gear sets than other classes and trait lines give toughness too so why would you have low toughness? You get 3k armor and over 16k hp easily. Actually if you play thief and somehow manage die it’s just l2p issue.

Whats next – a thread on how to counter bull rush/hundred blades combo? Good players beat bad ones no matter class. If you somehow have to come to the forums and complain about a class its a L2p issue.

Ballads.2509:

Whats next – a thread on how to counter bull rush/hundred blades combo? Good players beat bad ones no matter class. If you somehow have to come to the forums and complain about a class its a L2p issue.

But the thing is, Bullrush+100b actually has a very viable counter. Common aswell, available to every single profession. Atleast twice.

What exactly is your counter for getting people out of Stealth? Place a 15badge costing trap and hope they are dumb enough to step on it?

Terrahero.9358:

But actually getting hit by something thats invisible is quite hard if isnt actively trying to hit you.
Besides, if he does get revealed, problem with these teams is they are very mobile. They will pop into stealth again after 3 seconds and before they give of a hint where they are at they have gotten quite far away already.

The real issue here is simply that Stealth as a mechanic has no significant counter in the game at all. Everything seemingly has a counter, except Stealth. You cannot break someone out of stealth, or use something to see someone despite Stealth. As a mechanic it is uncounterable at what it does.

And its high time this changed to be honest. Giving both Ranger and Engineer an ability to “guard” an area against Stealthers aswell as the ability to temporarily see through stealth.
For example:

Guard:
Command your pet to aggressively guard an area. Your pet gains stealth and protection for the duration of the skill.

Have the pet also attack targets that are in stealth. If someone comes to close, the pet will attack them. Making it obvious someone in Stealth is near. Something similar for Engineers, have one of the Turrets shoot stealthed targets.

Then giving both these professions an active skill to, temporarily, let them see stealthed enemies.

Engineer:
Break out of stun, gaining fury and immunity to blindness.

Would be a great candidate. Lasts 10seconds, has a 40sec cooldown. Dont know which ability for Ranger would make most sense.

Actually, Utility Goggles would work better for seeing players in stealth. But I admit, I dunno entirely how it works so I can say for certain if that would be broken or not. But for some reason, I can picture an ability like analyze that works for a 1500 range around the Engineer giving 5 enemies around in the area reveal for 5 seconds.

Rangers…I’d say give us a trait that makes it so traps give enemies reveal for 5 seconds when they step on it.

How about if u take damage in stealth, it drops stealth? Like every other MMO in existence.

There’s a simple counter. Leave a significant garrison in towers and keeps.
It’s obvious that Anet want us to play the game that way – that’s why they’ve made ACs so powerful. They’re trying to improve the defensive strategies.
A properly organised army would never fall to such simple tactics as a couple of infiltrators opening the castle gate.

(Yes – I know it’s boring as kitten but lowbies would be happy to do it for decent XP and maybe a bit of gold)

I thought that’s why we have stealth traps?

how to counter stealth. True sight. every other MMO has a stealth counter that a player can obtain thru traits or skills.

Anet’s answer is traps.

-K

I guess stealth traps might help in this situation, but you’d need quite a few and need to be stealthed yourself so the Mesmer/Thief duo don’t see you drop it.

As for stealth as a whole, I think it would be cool to have some skills available in game that can apply a shortened version of the reveal debuff (say, 2 seconds). Stealth mechanics in GW2 are a little too harsh at present and having to explain to new players that there’s no active way to counter stealth (can’t bring a Thief/Mesmer out of stealth; exception being Shadow Refuge) is always a bit lame. It’s not until you’re much more proficient at PvP/WvW that you can truly deal with stealthy opponents. I think it would be beneficial for the state of the game to provide more logical means to deal with stealth.

Simonoly.4352:

Stealth mechanics in GW2 are a little too harsh at present

I main a thief and I agree with this. I hope our stealth gets nerfed. There are way too many ways for a thief to get stealth to the point where they are invisible 90% of the time and flickering around the map. Since there are so many NPCs in WvW, you can cloak and dagger them to gain stealth, plus use the many other skills we have to stealth. blinding powder, the healing skill, shadow refuge, etc. it is insane. there shouldn’t be a class that has maximum dps, maximum survivability, and maximum mobility.

One or two people could go and attack a thief, wreck them, and then they will stealth and all you can do is spam AoE and even then they are already on the other side of the map. Immobilize and stun skills are too uncommon, otherwise they would be a viable option for stopping perma-invis thieves. Please nerf thief invis. I can live with the ridiculous burst, because, it too will be nerfed when stealth is. Majority of thieves rely on being stealthed to open with mug + cnd + bs + heartseeker until death.

Bern.9613:

TyPin.9860:

If I was Anet, I would implement another “counter” to stealth as a kind of area effect….

…Also I would make a tower upgrade that partly reveals stealth in an area arround the tower. Like Deniara Devious suggested. The stealthed character would appear as a s transparent shimmer within the area….

I will speak on behalf of the thief as my main is one. A thief will not survive an aoe barrage because it has the lowest hp, toughness, survivability of ALL of the warrior classes. They do this because to survive is to eliminate the target before it has a chance to eliminate you. High, fast dps. So unless you’re also suggesting that ANet ups the stats of the thief….

You must build terrible. You’re only squishy if you build squishy. Some of the best thieves I know aren’t full glass, and instead built mid range so they can handle sustained fights. Stealth is a very powerful damage mitigation tool.

Bern.9613:

I will speak on behalf of the thief as my main is one. A thief will not survive an aoe barrage because it has the lowest hp, toughness, survivability of ALL of the warrior classes. They do this because to survive is to eliminate the target before it has a chance to eliminate you. High, fast dps. So unless you’re also suggesting that ANet ups the stats of the thief….

This is a common lie spread on these forums. I was today playing a thief. I went to Bloodtide Coast, which is a level 45-55 area with a level 41 thief. My friend was a level 53 guardian. Guess how many times I died? ZERO… But my guardian friend died.

My guardian friend left and I was killing the monsters and mobs alone. It went a bit slow due getting glancing blows all the time (>= 5 levels higher monsters than me), but there was still no risk of dying. Even when doing group event alone and all the enemy mobs were much higher level than me!! And if you get downed you can still get up so easily (so no armor repairs bills at all). I gained couple of levels.

Thief is among the easiest professions. Amazing survivability and exactly as good armor as engineers and rangers have. You can literally stand next to enemy bosses: blind, stealth, huge damage. Tons of evade, caltrops on dodges, need I go on? In fact I don’t remember the last time when I died playing a thief.

But I refuse to play such a face roll profession against real human players.

Just make Stealth affected by Boon Removal, without giving it any Boon Duration bonuses.

The counters to stealth are stuns, fears, and aoe damage. If you are having a hard time against classes that stealth, you may be playing a class the may just be weaker, or you may need to look at your utilities. Warriors and necros by far should never have a problem against thieves.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Bern.9613:

I will speak on behalf of the thief as my main is one. A thief will not survive an aoe barrage because it has the lowest hp, toughness, survivability of ALL of the warrior classes. They do this because to survive is to eliminate the target before it has a chance to eliminate you. High, fast dps. So unless you’re also suggesting that ANet ups the stats of the thief….

This is a common lie spread on these forums. I was today playing a thief. I went to Bloodtide Coast, which is a level 45-55 area with a level 41 thief. My friend was a level 53 guardian. Guess how many times I died? ZERO… But my guardian friend died.

My guardian friend left and I was killing the monsters and mobs alone. It went a bit slow due getting glancing blows all the time (>= 5 levels higher monsters than me), but there was still no risk of dying. Even when doing group event alone and all the enemy mobs were much higher level than me!! And if you get downed you can still get up so easily (so no armor repairs bills at all). I gained couple of levels.

Thief is among the easiest professions. Amazing survivability and exactly as good armor as engineers and rangers have. You can literally stand next to enemy bosses: blind, stealth, huge damage. Tons of evade, caltrops on dodges, need I go on? In fact I don’t remember the last time when I died playing a thief.

But I refuse to play such a face roll profession against real human players.

That’s a pretty bad comparison. Whenever you stealth, the mobs would train on to your friend, an at that level without the right gear and utilities, it’s a lot hard to sustain multiple mobkittenting you.

I really jus wish they’d remove Combo Stealth~
Buuht, as to dealing with stealth spam theives in your keeps, jus flail around spamming your cleave with hopes of ever landing a hit while watching for aoe rings, not that it maters cause by the time you see the little smoke field aoe they’ve already pressed #2.

Failed a back stab? Getting CC’d to death? Quick!:: Press 5, press 2! wow you’re so skilled you just got away from 20 people~

Terrahero.9358:

Giving both Ranger and Engineer an ability to “guard” an area against Stealthers aswell as the ability to temporarily see through stealth.
For example:

Guard:
Command your pet to aggressively guard an area. Your pet gains stealth and protection for the duration of the skill.

Have the pet also attack targets that are in stealth. If someone comes to close, the pet will attack them. Making it obvious someone in Stealth is near.

Rangers are a food source for thieves, it doesn’t make sense that they could fight back effectively. Just ask cows and pigs.

I have heard that arrow carts solve any problem posed in WvW. Try that yet?

Khayoss.2019:

I have heard that arrow carts solve any problem posed in WvW. Try that yet?

When in doubt arrow cart!!

counter to stealth portal team? Anyone in the keep, tower, castle etc.. gets ported out immediately back to their base upon the fortress being taken over. If your inside said structure and you know it’s inevitable that it’ll be taken over and you don’t want to be ported back, jump out, it’s as simple as that.

Next to having to chase or finished off downed players (which should be removed from WvW IMO, sweeping keeps for stealthed players is such a kitten awful waste of time.

iCryptik.1496:

The counters to stealth are stuns, fears, and aoe damage. If you are having a hard time against classes that stealth, you may be playing a class the may just be weaker, or you may need to look at your utilities. Warriors and necros by far should never have a problem against thieves.

The problem with stuns as a counter to stealth is that you can use blinding powder while stunned providing you stealth. Fear last at max 3 seconds if you’re in melee range of a warrior and 1sec for a necro. The best counter to stealth is life leech. You can semi-track thieves by seeing yourself get healed as you’re wacking air, assuming you’re attacking one without any endurance or initiative left.

I’d say certain conditions should be able to remove stealth. Like if a burn or bleed is applied to a stealthed player, then it breaks their stealth. It’d actually make logical sense; it’s hard to hide if you are leaving a smoke trail or bleeding all over the place.

iCryptik.1496:

That’s a pretty bad comparison. Whenever you stealth, the mobs would train on to your friend, an at that level without the right gear and utilities, it’s a lot hard to sustain multiple mobkittenting you.

I was doing well ALONE as well at Bloodtide Coast, so it is a good comparison. No trouble handling monsters who are 5+ levels higher than me when there was no other human players nearby, despite my thief’s attacks were doing just glancing blows. And my gear wasn’t even optimal.

I also went later alone with my level 43 thief to Southsun Cove. That place is very much soloable with a thief.

It really seems there forums are full of people who are bad at playing thief, but good at defending broken mechanisms like stealth.

Two reasons why the stealth trap was introduced in this game

A) Counter veil zergs
B) Counter perma stealthing thieves inside keeps/towers

Use a stealth trap. Problem solved.

A couple of things I wish to address.

First: medium armour.
Yep engineer and ranger fall within this armour class. Tell me, how do they feel about it? I hear/see so often how they’re getting owned and they’re more support/ranged classes not an in your face warrior class.

Second: toughness through armour and/or traits.
Been there, done that. Didn’t like the results tbh. I found I died more with more toughness and less power/attack. Played with my traits and armour and have finally settled for 17.5k hp, 1.9k armour, 3.2k attack (not clear if this includes sigil and rune), 51% crit rate and 107% crit damage, base. No consumables, no buffs. My biggest problem is the bunker/heal every second skill ele and the hundred and one clones mesmers. OMG, where do they come from? Are they parachuted in?

Third: perma-stealth.
I admit that I will use perma-stealth tactics. Use it for intel. Easily sustainable, hard to hide effects. Thing you have to remember is, perma-stealth = perma-not attacking. As for using stealth to make my get away. Well, excuse me! Next time I see a 10 man plus zerg hell bent on ripping me a new one, I’ll just stop, turn around and wave. Maybe all the thieves will. Hopefully when we do, ANet will adorn the thief with;
“Mass Confusion: Waving at a group of chasing enemies will cause them to turn onto each other until only one remains. This skill will cancel the urge to use stealth.”
There you go, problem solved. Thief no longer requires stealth to make a clean get away.

Edit: OMG, how could I have forgotten;
“Shout Leeeeeeeroy Jenkins: Turn and run abashedly into the chasing enemies. This may or may not result in death depending on how fast enemy can wipe tears of laughter from their eyes and will cancel all attempts to stealth.”

@ whoever about the d/p… the first hs out will not cause revealed if it hits. That’s because the stealth occurs after the leap is finished. After that first hs when they are stealthed it will cause revealed if they hit you with a subsequent hs. So if they are trying to chain stealth you can stand in the bp and cause revealed.

Thief mechanics 101… learn it.

Unless I aim for where the person isn’t standing when I do the second or third HS, which I what I do now when people try this on me.

buff reveald to 6 second in wvw and get reveald each time you exit stealth would help to

and stealth traps will deal with your problem with a thief and mesmer combo as you can close them in with traps makaing it so they cant move or stand where they do without getting reveald and trap is 30 sec so if they dont die from that then i dont know what would kill them or get them to leave the tower

I love how people want to substitute EZmode for actually having to do the work to beat skill and patience. Most people don’t have the patience to stealth for 10min while you wait for your team to get their act together, most people don’t have the skill to avoid detection from a half-hearted sweep, and most people haven’t spent the time looking at how to hide properly. If you can avoid a proper sweep you deserve the keep, because obviously someone missed a spot. Put in the work and thinking time and you won’t lose keeps to stealth teams.

I’ll probably make this point every time I think of posting here in one way or another: Your playstyle isn’t the only playstyle, and whether or not you like solo trolls, small unit tactics, zergbusting, PvDoor, or whatever, there is room for you in WvW, and at the same time you will upset someone who doesn’t like “that style of play”. Upset them and leave a flame ram on their corpse.

The best way to counter this is to get on your thief or mesmer and search out every possible stealthing areas yourself. If you know all the spots, they can’t hide.

I think a lot of people would be pleasantly surprised at how much work goes into this sort of stuff.

I’m one of the people responsible for his complaining (see this video: http://youtu.be/gftxWJTFKts). If you have any idea how what we do works, it’s trivially easy to counter. I’m not going to give that kinda info away to the baddies of the world, but if you’ve ever been in the same situation, you know how to beat it.

WitM.2308:

I love how people want to substitute EZmode for actually having to do the work to beat skill and patience. Most people don’t have the patience to stealth for 10min while you wait for your team to get their act together, most people don’t have the skill to avoid detection from a half-hearted sweep, and most people haven’t spent the time looking at how to hide properly. If you can avoid a proper sweep you deserve the keep, because obviously someone missed a spot. Put in the work and thinking time and you won’t lose keeps to stealth teams.

I’ll probably make this point every time I think of posting here in one way or another: Your playstyle isn’t the only playstyle, and whether or not you like solo trolls, small unit tactics, zergbusting, PvDoor, or whatever, there is room for you in WvW, and at the same time you will upset someone who doesn’t like “that style of play”. Upset them and leave a flame ram on their corpse.

I was invited into my current guild for literally escorting dolyaks and upgrading all night long. I understand well the value of patience and skill while everyone else is doing the fun stuff and taking things, while I don’t even get rewarded.

They made me stop doing that to get my first 80 because I wasn’t leveling very fast that way. (altaholic btw, I play all classes in multiple ways)

I take tactics, counters to those tactics, and counters to those counters seriously. This is why I spent the first month of WvW studying the supply mechanics and how they affected everything.

I’ve similarly studied this. Mesmer teams don’t even use their full potential currently. They could cause much more havoc than merely threatening to back cap a keep. But much like the ephemeral counters mesmers speak of that exist but should never be spoken, so too will I keep this information to myself.

Aberrant.6749:

@ whoever about the d/p… the first hs out will not cause revealed if it hits. That’s because the stealth occurs after the leap is finished. After that first hs when they are stealthed it will cause revealed if they hit you with a subsequent hs. So if they are trying to chain stealth you can stand in the bp and cause revealed.

Thief mechanics 101… learn it.

Yes. True. Dagger/Pistol is a superbly easy way (if properly traited + right utilities) for repeated stealth:

1. Pistol #5 (blackpowder)
2. Dagger #2 (heartseeker)
3. Then position yourself to flank your enemy while stealthed (or flee if you need )
4. Dagger #1 (backstab)
5. Rinse and repeat #1-#4 again

And if you see an enemy trying to activate a skill, which should be interrupted, just press #4 (headshot) for a daze.

Alternatively you can use shortbow #2 (clusterbomb) at that smoke field to give area stealth. And even better if you have two thieves. Then you can chain stealth easily.

Kodiack.2783:

how to counter stealth. True sight. every other MMO has a stealth counter that a player can obtain thru traits or skills.

Anet’s answer is traps.

-K

Traps do work though.

Draygo.9473:

Kodiack.2783:

how to counter stealth. True sight. every other MMO has a stealth counter that a player can obtain thru traits or skills.

Anet’s answer is traps.

-K

Traps do work though.

If traps were cheap this is true, as it is however they are only useful for very select situations. Like keeping the perma-stealth thieves from killing your supply camp trebs without dedicating 10 people to chase him around.

For 99% of WvW situations stealth traps or either ineffective due to the massive amount of area you need to cover (and their ability to teleport/blink past chokes) or simply not worth the cost to kill 1 thief for no better reason than to net a kill. (15 badges plus karma to get 2 badges maybe).

ANet is aware of the problem and has already solved it with stealth traps. A thief spec’ed for stealth that can’t stealth for 30 seconds is deader than Microsoft’s future ambitions for the OS market.

Remove the combo finisher from Heartseeker, problem solved.